


Paper Hearts

by tisfan



Category: Avengers Academy (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, High School AU, Meddling Friends, Secret Admirer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-15 01:08:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19284979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: When Bucky and Wanda are crushing, it's time for the Avenger's Academy students to do something drastic...





	Paper Hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flowerofthewolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerofthewolf/gifts).



“Someone’s got a faaaaaaaaan--” a male voice called out as Wanda opened her locker and was showered in red, pink, and white paper hearts.

Wanda promptly turned as red as the hearts. She always was a blusher. _Damnit_.

“What’s up with this?” Carol Danvers asked, plucking a heart from where it stuck to Wanda’s sweater and offering it to her. “It’s like, not Valentine’s day for another year, practically.”

“Oooh, someone likes the Scarlet Witch!”

“Summer romance, heating up!”

Wanda blushed and scooped the paper hearts up, wadding them up into a cheerful pink and red ball.

That was true, since it was summer, in fact. They’d be out of school for the summer, except Hydra’s invasion of the school over Spring Break, and Maphisto’s invasion over Halloween had put them behind on their schoolwork. Again.

Wanda wasn’t sure why they bothered with the pretense of vacation; the Academy being empty of students would just be painting a big target over them.

“Maybe another time travel thing,” Wanda said. There was nothing written on the heart, or any of the others as far as she could see. “Someone thinks it’s still Valentine’s day?”

“Or you have a secret admirer,” Carol said. “That’s cute.” The boys were still laughing. She glanced around to see who they were, Scott Lang, Robbie Reyes, and… Tony Stark.

“It’s not _cute_ ,” she said, crumpling up the heart and adding it to her pile. She didn’t like being laughed at. She wouldn’t put it past Tony, who was slowly dating his way through the entire student body, to send her a box of paper hearts just to be able to say he’d done it. He did something similar on his “date” with Misty Knight, which was just him buying her a pizza. He didn’t even sit with her while she ate it, just had it sent to her. “It’s ridiculous.”

She dumped the rest of the hearts in the trash and headed off to _Life Lessons_ , her two o’clock class with Madam Hydra.

Besides, the guy she liked didn’t do _cute_. He was tall, dark, brooding… red and pink paper hearts weren’t his style.

And no one else was worth it.

***

Bucky didn’t have to ask; he’d heard all about Wanda Maximoff’s anti-heart rant by the time school was out for the day. He grabbed his guitar case out of the music room and headed over to the Quad. He was almost, not quite, but getting ready. To think. About playing at open mic night over at Club A.

But he still needed to practice.

“You look as long as a cold winter,” Sam said, as soon as Bucky walked up to his normal bench.

“Ha ha,” Bucky said. He set up, facing Elektra’s nacho stand. He hadn’t quite managed to get up to facing an audience, and Viz said he absolutely could not stand with his back to the audience at open mic. It defeated the purpose.

The nacho stand was good, though. And there was always an extra plug left open where he could set up his amp.

“Look, I’m tellin’ you, you just gotta ask her out,” Sam said.

“Ask who,” Bucky wondered, as if he didn’t know. “Sharon?”

Sam scowled at him. “Back off the blonde, Bucky, she doesn’t like you.”

“Sharon likes me just fine,” Bucky said. Or at least, Sharon liked him as much as most people, which was to say, she didn’t really know he existed. Most of the students didn’t. He was the Winter Soldier, and they all stayed away from him. Except for Crossbones, who thought they should be pals, and Steve, who was his pal.

And Sam, who was Steve’s pal.

“Sharon does not like you--”

“If you say she doesn’t _like me_ like me, I’m going to laugh at you,” Bucky warned.

“Sharon may not like you like you,” Sam said, “but I hate you.”

“I know.” He checked his guitar’s tuning, strumming a few chords and humming under his breath. “At least you’re honest about it.”

Sam made an exasperated noise. “I don’t hate you.”

“What’d you have to go and ruin it for?” Bucky wondered. “I don’t need anyone to like me, except Steve.”

“And a certain girl who was tearing up your paper hearts this afternoon.”

“She was not tearing them u-- crap.”

“So they were your paper hearts,” Sam said.

“You already knew that,” Bucky said.

“Yeah, but it’s fun to get you to admit it,” Sam said. “Come on, ask the girl out.”

“Uh, no.”

“You tell her you like her,” Sam said, encouragingly. “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

“She might hear me?”

***

"They're the worst," Carol agreed, getting one of Tony's robots to fill up her drink. And get her some fries. Next to her, Rick Jones was eating his third pizza in as many minutes.

"So," Sam asked, "something drastic?"

"Something drastic."

***

"Hey," Captain Marvel said, catching Bucky after classes, "you busy Friday?"

"Shooting practice?" Bucky asked. He was one of the few guys on campus who didn't mind when a woman was better than he was. And he and Danvers were pretty close to evenly matched. "Or math homework?"

"Study group," Danvers said. "just a few of us."

"Sure."

"Great. See you Friday, Club A."

***

Wanda dropped onto the booth at Club A for a quick study session with Carol and Sam and… oh god. That was Bucky Barnes! She considered crawling under the table but… "you here for study group?"

"Hi there," she said brightly, already wishing she could go back in time and wear a nicer outfit. "Yeah. Are you?"

"Mmmhmmm," Bucky said. He leaned his guitar case against the seat and sat across from her. He stretched his long legs under the table and pulled out a stack of books, promptly disappearing behind them. His long hair hung in his face and his full mouth had that sexy emo pout going full strength.

"I've heard you practice," she said, not quite admitting that she'd been deliberately walking through the quad in hopes of seeing him there. "You going to open mic soon?"

"Mmmm." He was looking at her through the curtain of his hair.

Wanda was about to give up. Sam and Carol were late and Bucky obviously didn't want to talk to her. Which was sad. And if she was going to have to be sad, she wanted to do it privately.

And then Tony Stark crashed into their table. His hoverboard went flying. And Bucky's books hot the ground.

And a pink paper heart fluttered out from between the pages.

"Oops, sorry guys, just testing some new thrust capabilities… aaaaaand you don't care," Tony said. He helped himself out of the pile of books and broken table.

Wanda wasn't even sure when he walked away.

"Did you make these?"

"Uuuuuuuh? Maybe..." Bucky stammered, blushing.

"Oh." Wanda couldn't look at him, so hot were her cheeks. "I didn't think you liked cute stuff."

"I...uh… like you," he said, "and you're cute. And _you_ like cute stuff."

"Oh," Wanda said to the table. "Oh yeah, well, I do."

"Great," Bucky said. "that's… that's great."

***

Outside the club, Tony grinned at Carol. "Drastic enough?"

Carol grinned and held out a fist for him to bump. "It's a good start. I'll tell you if I need to blow anything up."

"Right," Tony said. "I'm taking a half day." 


End file.
